Green Sports Venues: Can All Sporting Events Be 100% Sustainable by 2030?

Sports venues use major amounts of electricity and water on a busy day of operation. Can sports venues become solar plants that are not only self contained but actually generating power for their neighborhoods? Stadiums and large speedways have hundreds of unused acres throughout the year that can be used for solar and wind farms.

The resulting power generated from solar and wind farms at racetracks and stadiums could eventually power entire cities. The dormant speedways and stadiums will eventually generate income from selling unused power back to the grid.

Pocono Raceway Opens Eyes of All Sports Venues with Massive Solar Power Grid

When NASCAR visited Pocono Raceway a few weeks ago the track unveiled a large solar power grid. The solar power grid covers 25 acres of property and over the course of 20 years will produce enough power to make the Pocono Raceway self sufficient along with 1,000 nearby homes.

The cost of the solar farm is $16,000,000 and created 40 local jobs during the construction of the farm. Pocono is now the first sports venue to be 100% solar powered and is now home to the largest solar farm at any sports venue. In fact, Pocono now is home to the 10th largest solar farm in the United States.

Next in line for Pocono will be to remove as much grass as possible to conserve water. Pocono does feature many trees throughout the property but they will need to increase the amount of trees to produce more oxygen to off set the fossil fuels.

Minnesota Twins Target Field Opens With Green Technology but More Can be Done

The Minnesota Twins organization started out with a solid plan to recapture rainwater from the field and they also installed waterless urinals to save hundreds of thousands of water over the the next twenty years. What else can be done? Trees and plants along the stadium roof could be a good start.

Other ideas for Target Field could be VIP parking carports. How could this help? The carports would be made of solar panels that would supply the power to the stadium and the surrounding downtown area. Solar carports will be the wave of the future in the new green economy.

New Dallas Cowboys Stadium has Set Goals to Cut Back but Needs to Produce Also

The Dallas Cowboys new stadium is going after the EPA's National Environmental Performance Track Program. The stadium incorporated green technology by featuring natural lighting throughout the stadium and also the mammoth end zone doors are opened to naturally cool the stadium.

Where can the Dallas Cowboys go from here? The Dallas area is know to be windy. Why not build a wind farm that could not only power the stadium but thousands of houses in the nearby neighborhoods? The VIP solar carport could be utilized in this area also. Dallas also gets more sun than most cities.

New York Mets Citi Field Green Roof and LEED Certified Building Specs Good Start

The New York Mets followed green building codes when building Citi Field but a late edition missed the boat when it comes to creating a green roof. Roof top gardens and green roofs do not call for grass. Grass is a water waster and does not address the solution for a roof top garden.

Roof top gardens should be low maintenance plants and trees that require little water but give off much more oxygen. To be fair it was a last minute edition an obviously research was not done before the papers were signed.

Sources:

www.usgbc.org
www.epa.gov/performancetrack